Schizophrenia is considered by most physicians to be very difficult
to treat. Psychotropic medications may suppress the frank psychotic symptoms,
however they create additional problems due to their many side effects and most
patients need to remain on these major tranquilizers indefinitely. Both of us
worked extensively on psychiatric wards prior to becoming naturopathic
physicians and wanted very much to find a more natural effective form of
treatment for schizophrenia. We have found homeopathy, at least in some cases,
to be the answer we were seeking. Many homeopathic physicians, however,
discourage the use of homeopathy to treat psychosis. Although we agree that
such cases can be very difficult to manage outside of an inpatient psychiatric
setting, we have had some real successes, of which this case is one. We have
found , as is true in orthodox medicine and other areas of holistic medicine,
that patients in their first or second psychotic break, especially those who
have not been hospitalized for their schizophrenia, are those who respond best
to our treatment.

We also want to emphasize that, although the remedies mentioned in this
case were of considerable benefit to this patient, homeopathic treatment is
highly individualized. Another patient, experiencing his or her own form of
psychotic symptoms, would need entirely different remedies. We presented this
case recently at the annual case conference of the Homeopathic Association of
Naturopathic Physicians in Seattle and hope that you will find it as
fascinating as we do.

K.S. was a 35 year-old woman of Japanese, French, and German descent whose
stated chief complaint was difficulty losing weight. However, as soon as the
interview began, she reported being in the middle of a "nervous breakdown",
diagnosed by her psychiatrist as "brief, reactionary psychosis" for which he
had given her Navane l0 mg h.s. When she began to develop torticollis, he
added Benadryl and Cogentin. She had been on the medications for less than a
month when she came to see us. She felt "like a zombie" with the drugs and
complained that the Navane had also made her jittery, anxious, and fearful at
night. She had decided on her own to discontinue them them the day before she
came to see us (which made us somewhat nervous but made it easier to treat her
homeopathically). The psychiatrist had offered her a psychiatric
hospitalization, but did agree to try to treat her as an outpatient.

She had begun hearing voices two months prior. The voices invited her to
join the man she'd had a crush on in the past and his girlfriend in sexual
intercourse. As an aside, she mentioned having been sexually abused for a
number of years as a child. One week prior to her breakdown she had visited a
clairvoyant who told her he opened her psychic abilities. The voices increased
after that. She tried to ignore them, but they continued to test her and she
felt the devil was trying to "take her". She was tormented by a constant
stream of obscenities and the voices instructed her to masturbate frequently.
She feared her soul would be lost. She also experienced burning of both inner
canthi which the voices told her was a "devil's stye". She had experienced
depression since age l9, during which she lost track of time, and was
prescribed antidepressants. She always had problems with low self-esteem,
described herself as oversensitive to criticism, and had difficulty with being
too empathetic to others' problems. She also complained of being impulsively
generous, easily influenced and manipulated by others, and socially
awkward.

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